“Well, boys, what are we to do with them? Shoot or hang?”
“Hang!” is the response from more than a majority of voices.
“Shootin’ is too clean a death for scoundrels sech as them,” is the commentary of a voice recognisable as that of Nat Cully.
“They ought to be scalped, skinned, an’ quartered,” adds a man disposed to severer punishment.
“Yes!” affirms another of the like inclining. “A bit of torture wouldn’t be more than the rascals deserve.”
“Come, comrades!” cries the Ranger Captain. “Remember, we are Texans, and not savages like those we’re about to punish. Sufficient to send them out of the world without acting inhumanly. You all declare for hanging?”
“All!”
“Enough! Where shall we string them up?”
“Yonner’s a pick spot,” responds Wilder, pointing out the two trees to which Don Valerian and the doctor had been lately lashed. “They kin each hev a branch separate, so’s not to crowd one the t’other in makin’ tracks to etarnity.”
“Jest the place!” endorses Cully. “Kedn’t be a better gallis if the sheriff o’ Pike County, Massoury, had rigged it up hisself. We’ll gie ’em a tree apiece, as they war about to do wi’ thar innocent prisoners. Takin’ their places’ll be turn an’ turn about. That’s fair, I reckin.”